Teenage Insect Nymphomaniacs A Go-Go

If, like me, you have a healthy scientific interest in the strange sex lives of invertebrates, you may be interested to know that London today saw the celebration of that moving and moveable feast, Annual Flying Ant Orgy Day!

Yes, it's the day when all the prospective queen ants fly out into the world for the first time and get shagged silly for the first and only time in their lives by a crowd of male flying ants, born specially for the purpose of bonking the young queens and pumping them full of enough ant juice (ahem) to give birth to the thousands and thousands of ant babies one needs to build a decent-sized nest. (Many of the boys break off their penises in all the excitement too, which brings a whole new meaning to "getting your end away".) The dazed but happy girlie ants then spend their day flying clumsily about the place (well, wouldn't you?) until their flimsily-attached wings drop off – in theory they are in search of somewhere to start their very own nests, but in practice they end up coating every pavement in town and getting stuck up the orifices of innocent passers-by in a rather disgusting fashion. Isn't nature grand?

A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to be present on the King's Road during Flying Ant Orgy Day – they were certainly pulling out all the stops that year, as Chelsea was swarming with the little buggers – and I still recall the packs of skinny Sloane Rangers squealing as fat spunkfilled (sorry) ants got in their hair and up their noses and made big splat-marks all over their Dolce & Gabbana shades. I can't say it was a beautiful sight, but it was a mildly amusing one.

So if you were out and about in London today and squashed a fat juicy ant or ten, you can at least be assured that they spent their final day on earth getting some. If only we could all be so lucky....